NatWest calls in 7,000 staff to clear backlog

[Barron]

NatWest calls in 7,000 staff to clear backlog after accounts are blocked

Chief executive Stephen Hester apologizes as angry customers remain unable to withdraw their own money

Stephen Hester, the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, was forced to issue a public apology after the bank was unable to say how much longer it would take to clear the backlog of payments for hundreds of thousands of NatWest customers affected by a computer glitch.

“Our customers rely on us day in and day out to get things right, and on this occasion we have let them down,” Hester said. “This should not have happened.”

Amid rising anger, he had spent Saturday at RBS’s City headquarters overseeing efforts to process the mountain of transactions delayed by the IT problem, which began on Thursday. In total, 7,000 staff were coming in on Sundayto handle customers’ queries and tackle the backlog.

RBS said the technical hitch which caused the problem had been “identified and corrected”, but when asked whether the issues could continue, a spokesman said: “We can’t rule it out.”

In a separate message to his staff, Hester, who waived a £963,000 bonus earlier this year after a public outcry, said: “I know we’re not out of the woods yet and there is more hard work ahead. You have my support.”

NatWest, which is owned by RBS, extended the opening hours of 900 branches on Saturday to allow affected customers access to their cash, and will open them again today. Customers at Ulster Bank, part of the RBS group, have also been hit.

People who could show they should have received payments were offered emergency cash payouts to tide them over. “Where our customers are facing hardship or difficulty, we can and will help them,” Hester said.

The bank has also been forced to promise redress to thousands of other people, many not NatWest customers, who have failed to receive their salaries because their employers use the bank.

The RBS spokesman said the bank would refund overdraft charges or other costs incurred by customers who have slipped into the red or seen direct debits bounce as a result of the problems.

Louis Brook, of the Move Your Money campaign, which urges the public to switch from the big high-street banks to ethical or mutual lenders, said he expected a surge in support from disgruntled NatWest customers.

“People are incredibly loyal and have quite strong emotional attachments to their banks, but when that’s broken by something so fundamental as not being able to get access to your own money, it can be the last straw,” he said.

[Not_A_Newbie]

Some technical hitch, you'd have thought they would have had backups in place before allowing 'IT experts' to mess with software.

Methinks they are not telling all.

[Barron]

Originally Posted by notanewbie

Some technical hitch, you'd have thought they would have had backups in place before allowing 'IT experts' to mess with software.

Methinks they are not telling all.

Methinks you may be absolutely right,

[geoff01]

I don't think they'll be overly-worried. They are owned by the taxpayer, so they'll just ask for some more money from the government to pay out all this overtime, plus customer compensation.

Oh, and they'll probably want to pay some huge bonuses out to the top dogs for all the extra work they've had to put in these last few days.

[Not_A_Newbie]

RBS and NatWest are saying this "glitch" was down to a junior staff member based in India and they expect us to believe it?

Typical banks, "not me gov, it was the trainee' What a load of ..

[Cashgirl]

And said 'junior IT contractors/staff' in India

1) messed up update
2) deleted backups
3) repeated same error 1 above on next day

Management incompetence on a grand scale.